Earth Lines

Quraysh Ali

If the world is a grab bag whose gifts are turning sour, "Earth Lines" is a 63-poem response that leaves no one free of responsibility. Moon's book of verse is a challenging, provocative political commentary on the disposable society in which we exist. She mixes up the pace with a variety of styles and textures (a quirky, rhyming epitaph to plastic containers; a flowing modern parable to Noah's Ark; a riddle about weeds) all openly defiant and crystal clear. Not to worry, this book is a lot of fun, and there are lighter moments (a limerick about a man who lives in litter, a song from a hedgehog, the campaign speech of an earthworm), but the more poignant, deeper works shine the brightest. "Like survivors of a holocaust, shorn and bare, / Skeletal trees point bony fingers, / Accusing the air." This stanza from "Air Raid" captures the intensity of most of the book, which urges the reader not only to think but also to find an active way to help curb such things as elephant poaching and global starvation. The different illustrative styles (photos, sketches, cartoons, silhouettes) suggest movement and change.